


Heaven, Hell, Here

by alex_wh0



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Hospital, M/M, Worried Andrew, injured neil
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-09
Updated: 2020-01-09
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:01:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22184512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alex_wh0/pseuds/alex_wh0
Summary: Neil is injured, Andrew is worried. He might have called Neil baby. Neil might have heard. Fluff at the end.
Relationships: Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard
Comments: 22
Kudos: 492





	Heaven, Hell, Here

“Andrew, let me in.”

“No.”

“Andrew, I have to see him. You’re not the only person who cares about him!” Nicky burst out, startling Kevin from his monologue on injuries and Exy players.

Frankly, the two of them were getting on his nerves. He ground his teeth in frustration, “No, Nicky. I am not letting you see him now. Come back tomorrow.”

Nicky sighed. He knew a dismissal when he saw one, and knew better than to disrespect Andrew’s no. Kevin, however, was another story.

“Let us in. I need to talk to him,” he said brusquely, and found himself at the receiving end of Andrew’s fist the next moment.

“I said no, Kevin,” Andrew snarled, even as Nicky and Matt pulled him off of the six-foot striker.

The Foxes were assembled at the hospital where Neil was now lying unconscious courtesy a strike to his head. Andrew had watched with quiet horror as the force of impact threw Neil against the plexiglass wall, against which he had fallen like a marionette whose strings had been cut.

One hour and two frantic calls later, Neil had wound up in the hospital.

“Concussion,” Aaron had said, voice uncharacteristically somber, demeanor grim. “He took a pretty hard hit to his head, so he’ll be out cold for a while, but we’ll be monitoring his vitals,” he had said, placing a firm hand on Andrew’s shoulder before leaving in a flurry of white.

Kevin and Nicky arrived immediately after, followed by Renee, Allison, Matt and Dan.

Now, five hours later, they were still in the hospital’s sanitised waiting room, faces ashen, worry a tangible presence in the air – stifling them as one.

“Andrew, we’re going to leave now, but we’ll be back in the morning. Let us know if you need anything,” Renee said, and left with Dan, Allison and Matt, who had thrown him sympathetic glances.

He didn’t need sympathy.

He didn’t need anything.

He needed nothing.

He needed _his_ nothing.

His nothing who was currently lying on a hospital bed, head bandaged, arms hooked to an IV machine. His nothing was now a handful of beeps on a monitor.

Andrew felt something close to violent rage shudder through him. _How dare he. How fucking dare he leave Andrew like this._ For the first time in 26 years, he felt tears prickle the back of his eyes, and swallowed convulsively.

He won’t cry. He won’t. There was nothing to cry about. _Nothing._

He changed into pyjamas that Nicky had left behind, crawled into the chair beside Neil’s bed and fought to stay awake.

**

“Are you worried?”

Aaron looked into Katelyn’s eyes, and then turned to look at his brother’s sleeping form, curled up in a chair, hand on Neil’s bed, reaching out as though he wanted to hold his fingers, but decided against it in the last minute.

He sighed. “No. Neil should be okay. It’ll be a problem if he doesn’t wake up in the next few hours.”

Katelyn rubbed circles into his hand with her thumb and the two of them watched Andrew wake up – first violently, and then quietly. He took a look at Neil’s still figure and pressed his knuckles to his face.

Aaron couldn’t take it. “Andrew.”

“Andrew, he should be okay.”

“What if he doesn’t wake up again? What if he doesn’t ever wake up again? What if the last image I have of him will be him breaking his fucking head?”

Aaron grit his teeth. “Andrew, he’ll wake up. Will you stay quiet.”

He fully prepared Andrew to taunt him, to berate him, to yell at him and sneer. But nothing could have prepared Aaron for the anguish in his twin’s eyes, the pain seemed to roll off him in waves, constricting everything inside.

“I didn’t know you cared so much,” said Katelyn quietly from behind Aaron, and at that Andrew turned.

“You call him nothing.”

“He is nothing. He is my nothing,” he grit out, before adding, “but he is my baby,” under his breath.

**

Too many lights. Too many voices. Too loud.

Neil Josten thought he was dead. Wasn’t heaven supposed to be a pleasant place, though, he mused to himself. But then, Neil Josten did not want to go to heaven. He didn’t believe in heaven, and he had already been in hell, so where the fuck was he now?

He faintly remembered a backliner from Detroit slam into him, and everything after that had been a hazy. The warm trickle of blood in his mouth – tasting of metal and rust, some screaming and jostling, a siren. Shit, was that the police? His mother would kill him. NO.

No, wait. His mother has been dead for 9 years now. He was Neil Josten, starting striker for the New York Exy Club, former starting striker for the Palmetto Foxes, Andrew Minyard’s partner and-

_Andrew._

Shit, he had to be alive. He wanted to see Andrew. He was going to get his ear chewed off, but he wanted to see him.

So desperate was the want that Neil felt his eyes flutter open and a semi-dark room swum in his hazy vision. There were three people in the room, one uncomfortably close to him, but he found himself not minding.

“…but he’s my baby.”

The anguish in that voice stirred something in Neil. He wanted to reach out and comfort them, but found that his voice was missing. And now that he was awake, he felt his mouth parched, tongue dry, and head gripped in white-hot pain.

He croaked out the only word readily accessible to his mind.

“Andrew.”

The figure next to him startled, even as the other two started moving around the room, near the machines next to him. There was a constant buzz, and he felt everything go hazy again.

**

“Andrew, you need to sleep.”

“No.”

“Andrew, we’ll be there when he wakes up. Aaron says it’s only a matter of time.”

“I know what Aaron said,” he snapped at Renee, but she only patted the armrest of his chair. “We’re going for breakfast, we’ll get you something,” she said, leaving the room, Nicky in tow.

Andrew sighed and went back to studying the dull yellow hospital wall. He didn’t know when he had become so weak, and a part of him was mortified at having such extreme reactions toward one person. But the rest of him wanted Neil to wake up so that he can yell at him. _What was he thinking, the stupid junkie._

He moved to the window and contemplated the distance to the ground when he heard it for the second time that day – his name, two syllables, rolling off Neil’s tongue, a direct lifeline to Andrew’s drowning mind.

“Andrew.”

He walked around to Neil’s bed and stared down at him, like he had done every single minute since the night before. But this time, he stared back, icy blue eyes intact.

“Andrew, where the fuck am I?”

“Hospital, Josten. Where else do you think?”

Neil looked up at him, and Andrew felt his heart clench. _Get it together, dammit._

“Let me call Aaron,” he said, and made to move away, but Neil brushed his bandaged fingers against his.

“Wait.” Andrew turned to look at him.

“Did you call me baby or did I dream it up?”

Andrew made his way to the door twice as fast and Neil thought he heard him mutter “fucking junkie” under his breath.

Neil didn’t believe in heaven or hell but he definitely knew that he was relieved to be back.

**Author's Note:**

> Did y'all like it? Come say hi on [Tumblr](https://alex-wh0.tumblr.com/) and [Twitter](https://twitter.com/alex_wh0).


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